It’s the distant future and mankind has expanded beyond its solar system. After spending several centuries traveling, expanding and populating, humans perfected the use of wormhole technology. But wormhole technology comes with a price: it consumes a natural resource found only in particular systems. Many more decades passed as humans built and placed the wormhole devices at strategic points in their little section of the galaxy, thus creating a network of “jump points.” During this time, Mankind had been aware of a war that spanned the galaxy, though known only by the effects their technology left behind. Through research and investigation, humans had learned that there was a massive war taking place between two powerful races: the benevolent Aeryopolis (silvery bird-like creatures that are described as looking like mercury), and the ruthless Kreen (bizarre looking creatures thought to have once had the ability to change their appearance at will. There is no current record of what...

You play as a female Science Officer aboard a General Deployment Unit, the Antimatter Discharge. Your duty was to assist in deploying a man-made wormhole device in orbit around a moon in a distant star system. Are you ready?

[page=Interview with creator]
1. For those who live in a rock or under it and havnt tried your awesome mod! State your real name, job, place where you are from and age!

My name is Chris Rogers. I am currently a student of 16 years living in Shreveport, Louisiana

2. Spatial Fear was thought up when? Is the mod like another game or mod in your opinion?

Spatial Fear was first conceptualized to be a game by Alex Hammond in the year 2000. Ever since the beginning, we have strived to make Spatial Fear as engrossing, entertaining, and as thought-provoking as possible. To me, the end product has many appeals toward being a full-on game rather than a mod. Granted it is a total conversion, but it is so much different than Unreal Tournament that it almost feels like a whole new game.

3. How long have you been working on Spatial Fear?

I’ve been working with Liquid Element on Spatial Fear for almost a year now. The project was approximately half way complete when I joined on.

4. Describe the best feature in the mod in your opinion? What should the person look for that they might miss?

Wow, this is a tough one. Spatial Fear has an incredible amount of new features ranging from NPC conversations to vehicles. But if I had to pick one feature of all of them, I would say it is the goal table. The goal table is not an actual item or object in the game, but more of an entity. It allowed us to modify the way the game progresses based on what the player did in a previous section of the game. For instance, an action in one level can directly influence the course of another. This feature is so unique and powerful, it would have to be my favorite.

One of the cool features that might go unnoticed is that we have upgraded the AI to allow them to track the player’s scent. If you were to walk from one side of a level to the other, our AI could track your exact movement to your current location. That capability gave the game a sense of being unable to hide. Not only are you confined to a space ship, but the creatures will always be able to find you. It’s quite a cool feature if you experiment with it a bit.

5. Describe the weapons and what the weapon you will use the most and why?

We have a total of seven player-usable weapons: the B9 pistol, B9 rifle, ultrasonic rifle, rapid eddy, electric projector, grenade launcher, and atomic rifle. The last weapon is the alien blaster, which cannot be used by the player. All of them are energy-shots, and have some very interesting effects. The weapons are quite original in some ways, and are not your typical FPS-fare weapons.

My favorite of them all is the B9 Rifle. It fires very rapidly (as of v1.2) and is capable of great damage if used correctly. The secondary fire is also very fun to use, firing an explosive shell.

6. How is the damage system in Spatial Fear?

The damage system in Spatial Fear is pretty much standard. The health system, however, is not. Your health is displayed as a series of rings in the lower-left hand corner of the screen. They begin by spinning very rapidly, and slow as your health decreases. This increases tension in many ways, as you never know your exact health.

7. How did the plot and story originate for the mod?

The plot and story are the products of Alex Hammond. He had been conceptualizing this story for quite some time, and came to see it’s potential as a game. The plot itself is one of Spatial Fear’s strong points, and we tried to make it a good portion of the gameplay. For those of you who don’t know Spatial Fear’s plot, you play the part of Jael Kenos, a female science officer aboard the Antimatter Discharge space vessel. Your mission was to deploy a wormhole device into a key place, but something terrible has happened. You awaken in cryo storage, unsure of your surroundings. There is evidence of fighting, and you hear alien noises around you; thus the adventure begins. I think Alex did a fantastic job with the story, and he really helped us out in implementing it into the game.

8. I see on the site you left out multiplayer. Why? Are you planning to add it?

Multiplayer was left out, yes. The primary reason we did this is because we found it hard to incorporate multiplayer into the Spatial Fear style, which centers on being all alone and vulnerable. The only way to do multiplayer in the Spatial Fear universe would be to have it as a whole other game, but I can’t reveal anything.

9. Even if this is single player what are the characters in the mod like?

You will encounter several NPCs in the game, most of them injured or dying. Our conversation system allows you to carry on interactive conversations with the NPCs, allowing them to assist you with your escape. There are also NPCs that will actually fight alongside you and help you complete a certain task. However, the majority of the game is spent alone.

10. What mods do you like?

Of the mods I have played, my favorites would have to be Defence Alliance and the extremely entertaining Strangelove, both for Unreal Tournament.

Final thoughts:

Of my time spent in the video game community, my time with Liquid Element working on Spatial Fear is undoubtedly the best. I love working with the team, and love what we do. Spatial Fear was not only fun and worthwhile do develop, but I still play it. What I’ve gotten out of my time is fantastic.

[page=Reasons why you should play this]
1. Its fun!
2. The mod was done perfectly for the UT engine.
3. Team and Chris the mapper proved that even mods other than Half Life can be cool for single player mods.
4. The team says so!
5. I say so!